A Little History of Poetry

A vital guide to poetry from ancient times to the present Poetry is language made special, so that it will be remembered and valued. It does not always work – over the centuries countless thousands of poems have been forgotten. This Little History is about some that have not. John Carey tells the stories behind the world´s greatest poems, from the oldest surviving one written nearly 4,000 years ago to those being written today. Carey looks at poets whose works shape our view of the world – such as Shakespeare, Whitman and Yeats – and more recent poets like Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney, and Marianne Moore who have started to question what makes a poem great´ in the first place. Little Histories – Inspiring Guides for Curious Minds